Things You Realize While Creating Characters (humor)

Creating characters is hard enough. But there are so many more problems you can hit, even after you've finished putting your cast of characters together. Since this is such a depressing subject for everyone involved, let's at least make it funny, shall we?

• Nobody will ever know what all these obscure facts are that I write. . . let alone care. *sheds a silent tear*
• I just made that character exactly like the other one. Just give the one brown eyes and the other one blue eyes. BECAUSE EVERYONE LOOKS AT THE EYES DON'T THEY. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT COLOR YOUR BEST FRIENDS EYES ARE NO YOU DON'T SO STOP TALKING ABOUT THE EYE COLOR. Excuse me.
• Is this character too mean? If you think he is, he probably is. He's probably taking yarn from kittens and lollipops from infants when you're not looking, cold-hearted monster that he is.

• Where are these characters' parents? I feel like this speaks for itself.
• Wow, this character is not likable at all. Quick, give her a really weird tacked-on detail that makes her still barely able to identify with the problems of her friends! Sure, she's rich and going to inherit a vast estate, but she once went without dinner when she was five! She can totally relate to their poverty!!!

• This character has no reason to be doing what he's doing. He has no motivation whatsoever, so what the heck is he doing adopting these orphans right and left? Yeah, I don't know either.
• I might be going crazy, because the cast of the book are getting way too real. Once you reach the point where you feel like they'd answer if you spoke their name into the mirror, you should probably take a break to socialize with real humans a little bit.
• There is absolutely nothing unique about this character at all. It's true, but let's not tell him that. Would hate to make him feel that he'll never be loved by the heartless minefield of fiction readers out there.

• Which super cliche name did I give this character again? Was it Jose? Juan? Dante? (forgive me, Latin America)
• Wow, I am a terrible human being. Yeah, try not to think about your characters as real people if you can help it. It doesn't make for good self-esteem.
• I think I just gave all my characters names starting with A. (So wait, which one of us is Marty?)
• Hang on, are all of them wearing jeans and a t-shirt? Yeah, probably. Throw in a traditional hula dancing costume once in a while, would you? Let's have a little variation here, people! 
• All of my characters are sarcastic. Would they actually get anything done in a realistic setting? Probably not. Chances are they would spend the entire book in an epic sass-fest, without accomplishing any world-saving whatsoever.

(thing is, I don't care that much. Sarcastic characters are my favorites)

• There are too many tragic backstories. 

But you can never have too many, right? Your characters might come out of your book with fire and pitchforks and an overly elaborate plan to murder you in your sleep, but don't worry about it. I'm sure everything will be fine.

• I wish these characters were alive because they're honestly more pleasant people than 95% of the population of the galaxy. Please, someone invent a machine that replaces all the sucky people with nice book characters. It would be such an improvement to this planet.

That's all I got. I realized halfway through that this is kind of a post on how to write characters, with humor as the cover-up. But it was fun for me, so here's hoping you liked it, too. Judging by how surprisingly easy this was to write, there might be a part 2 sometime.

What's the most common problem you hit with creating characters? Got any good jokes about it? Let me know in the comments! I try to get back to all of the comments on my blog, so talk to you then!

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